Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Gary Smith: Look, let me take the first part of that, Paul. Listen, there is been a lot of volatility with sort of whipsawing of the same demand at any one moment in time in any given account. If we’re sharing with others, then they are obviously going to try and get get supply from who they can. I would say, overall, and we are also taking new accounts as well. Overall, I mean, I think the order demand and the performance in Q4 kind of speaks for itself. And we expect very strong share gains, which are really built into our backlog and our guidance for the year. So our share gain is in our orders, and customers have voted. And they continue to migrate towards the best technology at scale, which is what Ciena has. Take part of that question, do you want to?

Jim Moylan: Our outlook for all of our major customers is good, and our order volume is good. We’re not seeing any sign of weakness in AT&T or any of our major customers.

Paul Silverstein: Alright. And Gary, just to be clear, going back to the share gain commentary, if you have lost in certain situations share because of inability to deliver, you’re telling us that’s not among Tier 1s or it’s not something you think is

Gary Smith: We’ve not lost any major customers whatsoever during this. And if there are particular one moment in time someone shipped more than we have into that, we think that is transitory given the demand characteristics that we’re seeing and engagement with these customers.

Jim Moylan: Just to be clear though, Paul, we did see a relatively small number of cancellations in the quarter, probably the same dynamics that Gary is talking about. But that number has been overshadowed by the strong demand that we see overall. And whatever share we might have lost in any account, I’m confident that we will get it back over the coming quarters and years.

Paul Silverstein: Alright. And for my follow-up, there is obviously been a lot of investor concern about web-scale, the health web-scale, in particular. From the commentary of the various major web-scale players certainly suggest they are not coming back on . They set a strategic €“ what are you guys seeing from that segment? Obviously, not just here now, but looking downstream.

Gary Smith: So we had a very strong performance, both in terms of revenue and in terms of order intake. It was well over $1 billion. We’re continuing as we work with them in in FY €˜23, we expect to shift revenue significantly more to GCN than we did last year. And that’s a combination of orders that we’ve got in the backlog and other orders that we’re about to get. So it varies between the various players there. But overall, we see pretty strong demand as they continue to focus on building out their networks.

Jim Moylan: I also say that we have over the past few years developed a much deeper and more strategic relationship with those web-scale customers, who are driving so much of what’s going on in our industry. And so we’re very excited by the fact we’re engaged with them by much more than just plain data center conditions. And hopefully, we will be able to tell you about some of that stuff as we move through time.

Paul Silverstein: Guys, can I ask for a clarification on one thing? For those of us who remember your acquisition continue to back in 2004, which was as identical to your acquisition of Tibit as two deals could be. And correct me if I’m wrong, but there is nothing left to contain employees, revenue, nothing. Now I recognize that was a copper DSL-based solution. The market is incredibly different. This is optical. Maybe that’s the answer. That is just a very different environment and you’re a very different company than you were 15 plus years ago. But any lessons learned from that deal?